MICHAEL RADO: SHOW YOUR WORK
MAR 19 - APR 23, 2022
OPENING RECEPTION: MAR 19, 4 - 8P
EXHIBITION WALK-THROUGH LED BY THE ARTIST: APR 16, 4 - 6P
For the third year of the studio program, Art Cake is pleased to present a solo presentation by participating artist, Michael Rado. On view is a selection of new sculptural paintings from the artist’s body of work, Dynamic Symmetry. This is the seventh part of a series that Art Cake has organized for the participating artists-in-residence as an opportunity to present and document their work outside of the studio.
Spanning sculpture, performance, video, and drawing, Rado explores themes of idealism and order in his practice. Often using construction and domestic materials, such as masonite, red rosin paper, and Poplar wood, he creates compositions that are characterized by ideal proportions. He employs the geometry of dynamic symmetry, which is a set framework that is designed to promote continuity, rhythm, and balance within a composition. Each of the artist’s works begins with the same process of dividing the plane into a grid of squares, and further into dynamic rectangles, which is a system of proportions popularized by Canadian-born American artist Jay Hambidge in the early twentieth century as a means to constructing an ideal layout for landscape and portraiture.
In a statement, Rado expands on his practice, noting, “My work explores how humans fundamentally divide space and things, both real and imagined. In nature, there are nebulous notions of sovereignty and territory, but in human civilization, we project geometric ideals of regularity and proportion onto natural terrain, like Cartesian grids imposed onto the Great American West. We define intended use for space, and decide proportionally who should own this space, sometimes imposing societal systems of order, inventions like class and race. In painting, we project distinct compositional frameworks like the Golden Ratio, with often mythological associations, to produce divine compositions. From biology to economics, humans define taxonomies, groups of things related by common properties. In mathematics, there is set theory, or similar objects grouped by axioms, including mathematical abstractions. My work attempts to extract and employ these systems in unexpected ways as an attempt to better understand the order of things.”
In Rado’s most recent work on view in Art Cake’s second floor gallery, a contrast between mathematical, geometric framework and fluid abstraction is present. In each work, the layered planes create a seemingly cartographical network composed of dissecting lines, a range of colors, collaged images, and brush strokes. The collaged elements within the gridded compositions are from pages of a collection of National Geographic magazines from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Rado separates the pages in his studio by theme, and folds each page to correspond with the series of lines that dissect the rectangular form of the composition. Rado notes, “I think of the National Geographics in the same frame of reference of idealism and the picturesque, and a bit about systems of understanding. I think about the relationship between geometry, measuring the earth, painting, ways of knowing, and our interaction with the media.”
Varying in scale, all of the works included in Show your Work contain similar proportions. In a statement about his presentation, Rado notes, “A nod to the adage echoed in pedagogy, Show your Work, the work on view aligns with the desire to reveal the process used to arrive at an ideal solution. This notion is often at odds with the desire of artists throughout history to obfuscate the systems employed in making, from concealing underpaintings and compositional geometry to hiding technology used as an extension of human limitations, like the camera obscura.”
A selection of seven works on paper, featuring Two Sides of the Same Page, will also be on view.
Learn more about Michael Rado’s work while participating in Art Cake’s studio program.
MICHAEL RADO: ORIGIN OF GEOMETRY
Read “Michael Rado: Show your Work” by Charles Schultz in The Brooklyn Rail
“My work explores how humans fundamentally divide space and things, both real and imagined.”
ABOUT MICHAEL RADO
Michael Rado was born in Central Ohio, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received his B.F.A. in 2009 from the University of Michigan and his M.F.A. in 2016 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited throughout the midwest, notably at EXPO Chicago, Kruger Gallery, with Fieldwork Collaborative, and The Franklin. In 2017, Rado was a Fields Fellow at the University of Chicago. Rado is currently an artist-in-residence at Art Cake in Brooklyn, New York.
Images:
Red in Isolation, 2021. National Geographic, watercolor, acrylic, rabbit skin glue, marble dust, Masonite panel, poplar. 14 x 19 inches. Sunrise, Sunset, 2022. National Geographic, rabbit skin glue, acrylic paint, marble dust, Masonite panel, poplar 14 x 19 inches. Birds in Flight, 2021. National Geographic, acrylic, watercolor, rabbit skin glue, marble dust, Masonite panel, poplar. 13 1⁄2 x 19 inches. On Black, 2022. National Geographic, acrylic, watercolor, rabbit skin glue, marble dust, Masonite panel, poplar. 27 x 38 inches.
FOR PRESS INQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT:
marina@artcake.org